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The Romans took over the Italian peninsula around 264 B.C, they had to defeat various Italian groups of people as well as the Etruscans through many long and gruesome battles. When Rome expanded and conquered Italy, it set off a series of events and then, wars/conflict with the people of Carthage.

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The first Punic war was a war between Rome and Carthage, which was originally set off, as I mentioned in my last side, because the two empires territories started to veer a bit too close to each other. The war started in 264 B.C, Rome sent an army into Sicily (what the Carthaginians believed was their territory) and the Carthaginians considered this an act of war. Roman fleet eventually defeated the Carthaginian navy and the war came to and end.

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Carthage vowed that they would seek revenge against Rome, and that's exactly what they did. Because they lost Sicily, they expanded their empire into Spain. After the Romans set a plan to get some of Carthage's allies to revolt and succeeded, Carthage was furious. This set off the start of the second Punic war.

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From 218-201 B.C, the second Punic war was taking place in the Mediterranean, a great Carthaginian general, Hannibal, led an army of 46,000 men, 37 battle elephants, and a large number of horses into Rome. (Sadly the elephants did not survive when they had to cross the Alps, the mountains took a large toll on the army) In 216 B.C Rome met Carthage and they went head-to-head in battle. This was a big mistake for Rome, it was a tragedy to their army, they lost 40,000 men. Rome had to forfeit and ended up giving up.

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After Hannibal took control of Italy, he was free to go wherever he pleased, however he didn't have the men, supplies, or equipment to attack large cities. Therefore Rome slowly started taking back some of the cities. In 206 B.C Rome send their troops to Spain which moved the Carthaginians out of Spain. Rome later invaded Carthage instead of fighting Hannibal in Italy, which led to the Battle of Zama in 202 B.C. Rome won and became the dominant power in the Mediterranean, and the largest and most dominant Empire of the time.

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50 years later, the two empires fought their third and final battles against each other in what would be the third Punic war. For many years, many Romans wanted Carthage completely destroyed, so in 146 B.C that's exactly what they did. In ten days, the Roman army had Carthage in shambles. The territory of Carthage became part of Rome's empire, which was turned into Africa.

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In 148 B.C Macedonia was made a Roman province, which led to, just two years later, Greece getting placed under the control of the Roman governor of Macedonia. Later, in 129 B.C, Pergamum became Rome's first territory that they took over in Asia. Rome is at this point, the most powerful Empire in the Mediterranean.